What is the pollen exactly too btw??
2007-10-29 07:48:56 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Home & Garden ➔ Garden & Landscape
What happens to the pollen too?
2007-10-29 07:57:15 · update #1
Butterflies feed primarily on nectar from flowers. Some also derive nourishment from pollen, tree sap, rotting fruit, dung, and dissolved minerals in wet sand or dirt. Butterflies play an important ecological role as pollinators.
As adults, butterflies consume only liquids and these are sucked by means of their proboscis. They feed on nectar from flowers and also sip water from damp patches. This they do for water, for energy from sugars in nectar and for sodium and other minerals which are vital for their reproduction. Several species of butterflies need more sodium than provided by nectar. They are attracted to sodium in salt and they sometimes land on people, attracted by human sweat. Besides damp patches, some butterflies also visit dung, rotting fruit or carcasses to obtain minerals and nutrients. In many species, this Mud-puddling behaviour is restricted to the males and studies have suggested that the nutrients collected are provided as a nuptial gift along with the spermatophore during mating.
2007-10-29 07:56:00 · answer #1 · answered by Juice 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Butterflies simply transfer pollen from one flower to another as they drink nectar. A butterfly's only objective is to eat and mate. It is the plant that has evolved in such a way as to insure that pollination takes place by keeping it's nectar deep inside the flower which causes the butterfly, bee, wasp, and humming birds to get dusted with the pollen each time they feed. Then when the insects move to the next flower that flower gets pollinated. Flowers need to be pollinated in order to go to seed and produce offspring.
From Wikipedia:
Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of microgametophytes (pollen grains), which produce the male gametes (sperm cells) of seed plants. The pollen grain with its hard coat protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower.
2007-10-29 11:06:43 · answer #2 · answered by Sptfyr 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
butterflies drink the nectar from the flower the pollen is carried on them as they go from flower to flower this somehow helps the flower look up pollination
2007-10-29 07:51:47 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
They store it up in an old tree trunks, and late in the year when flowers are gone, they sell it to the bees at a premium price. Pocket the cash and head back to Mexico, were they lounge around the pool with some hot-looking
Mexican butter babes at their villa.....I Think?
2015-07-21 03:28:22 · answer #4 · answered by anne 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They only get covered in it. They drink the nectar of the flower. Nectar is super-saturated natural sugar.
2007-10-29 08:00:51 · answer #5 · answered by outremerknight 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they eat the nectar from the flowers, thats what they live on. was reading about them as we have a lot in the garden. if you want to encourage them put out sugar and water in a dish for them.but they hibernate in winter.
2007-10-29 07:52:54 · answer #6 · answered by heavymetalbitch 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They sell it to the bees or swap it for nectar.
2007-10-29 07:54:19 · answer #7 · answered by trickytrev 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's like a drug to them so they snort it.
2007-10-29 08:01:21 · answer #8 · answered by Arther 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋